His formal elementary schooling was limited and he only attended for two winters, but was inspired by science especially due to witnessing a partial solar eclipse in 1832.

[2] He saved his salary as a school teacher to attend Marshall College,[4] but could only fund two years of his education.

As such, he returned to teaching for two years in West Virginia, to afford the rest of his education at Bethany College.

[2] In Liberty, Missouri, he found a copy of Newton’s Principia which included some additional papers on the tide from the French Academy of Science, which he studied and theorised about.

He also studied Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste, and these combined led him to believe that the motion of the Sun and moon on the tides was slowing the Earth’s rotation around its axis.

Ferrel also studied the effects that the Sun and Moon had on the tides, and how it affected Earth’s rotation about its axis.

[2] In 1880, he proposed to the Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey a machine which could use data to predict the tidal maxima and minima.

[2] Ferrel resigned from the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1882, but stayed on to oversee the completion of this project, which was a big success and was used for over 25 years.